Churchill's principle

In light of recent calls for indefinite detention without trial (This internment lobby risks harming not just liberty, but security itself, July 20), it is worth remembering that before New Labour took power, a suspect could only be held for 48 hours without being charged, extendable to four days under judicial supervision. This was then extended to seven days, 14 days, and now a month. In 1943 Winston Churchill said in a letter to his home secretary that "to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law is in the highest degree odious and forms the basis of all totalitarian regimes". He was discussing what was to be done about Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists.
Robert TarbuckLondon